


Honu

by spinner33



Category: Hawaii Five-0 (2010)
Genre: A little sad - a little sweet, M/M, Tree-hugging dirt-worshipping nature fic
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-05-28
Updated: 2016-05-28
Packaged: 2018-07-10 18:18:44
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,879
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/6999334
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/spinner33/pseuds/spinner33
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Moments like this should not be viewed through a camera lens, but with the heart.  It was a passing second in time that would never come again.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Honu

_“Way up north, I took my day. All in all, was a pretty nice day._  
_Put the hood right back where, you could taste heaven perfectly.”_  
_\-- A Sorta Fairytale -- Tori Amos_

Steve and Danny were too busy arguing with each to catch the first warning sign. 

“Danno? Uncle Steve?” Grace murmured, her head turning from one to the other, then focusing straight ahead. 

“You gotta suck the enjoyment out of everything for me, don’t you?” Danny accused, ignoring his daughter for the moment because he was too busy being angry at Steve. His partner’s stoic expression didn’t change, but his mercurial eyes went through anger and hurt and regret before calming. His mouth was a thin, red line, but his eyes were like fireworks in the dawning light. 

“I’m not trying to suck the enjoyment out of anything, Danno, but someone with a family history of cholesterol issues, and two grandparents who died of heart failure, should know to take it easy on the malasadas.” 

“Danno? Uncle Steve?” Grace repeated, this time a little louder. 

Steve was too busy watching Danny, and not watching the road. It was a two-lane beach trail in the boonies. There wasn’t much traffic. It was the crack of dawn, and the sun had broken the horizon only about five minutes ago. Grace was in her pajamas, and had a blanket, a stuffed dolphin, and a pillow in the backseat with her. She hugged the pillow close, and stared fearfully ahead. Grace had lived years of Danny and Rachel arguing this way, and she didn’t like it one bit. 

“I am a grown adult, Steven, and if I want to have a malasada with my morning coffee, before I allow you drag me to the Hinterlands for an entire day of hiking through the wilds, I will have a malasada. If I want to have seventeen malasadas with my morning coffee, I will fucking have them!” Danny bitched.

“Watch your mouth,” Steve whispered, eyes going quickly to Grace. “I should drag you to the Hinterlands more often, work off the stuff that's bad for you that you keep sneaking on the side when you think nobody’s watching you.” 

“I love these heavenly little clouds of sugar and…and… whatever…” Danny sighed, lifting up the bag and shaking them around. 

“UNCLE STEVE, LOOK OUT!!” Grace screamed, thrusting her small hand between Danny and Steve where they were almost nose to nose across the two seats. 

Steve’s eyes went forward as he slammed the brake pedal. His brain took in the road ahead in snapshots: There was a Hawaiian woman in the road. She was wearing a yellow hibiscus-flower print sarong. She had long, black hair being blown around by the wind. Her beat-up bicycle was off on the side, in the sand. Her eyes weren’t on the cars, but on the road. There were rocks across the road. The rocks were marching in single file. They weren’t rocks!

“HONU!” Grace wailed. Her stuffed dolphin hit the windshield and bounced down into the floorboard. Danny immediately had a hand out, bracing Steve’s chest from hitting the steering wheel. Steve stared down at the hand, and gave his partner a grateful smile. There was sugar all over Danny’s lap. A couple of the beloved breakfast treats had landed in the floorboard with the stuffed dolphin. 

The Camaro stopped within three feet of the woman in the road. Morning sunlight lit her wafting hair, haloing around her from behind. She focused on Steve and Danny’s shocked expressions, and gave a slow smile. 

She motioned down to the road plaintively. She was dressed for the beach – clothes glowing yellow and gold against her brown skin, flip-flops flapping the sand-dusted pavement. A necklace of shells and beads swung low from her neck. 

Steve and Danny climbed out of the car, limbs like jello, hearts pounding. The Camaro’s hazard lights were blinking. Danny ran both hands through his hair, and kicked the squished malasada off the sole of his foot. In the distance, about a half a mile behind, another car full of people was already beginning to slow down. They decreased speed as they reached the point where Steve had slammed on the brakes and left a pair of panicked black streaks along the two-lane road. 

Grace scrambled out, and got down on her knees, eyes gleaming with excitement. 

“Monkey, you’re not supposed to touch the turtles,” Danny cautioned. Grace crawled along with the marching, green and white ovals, coaxing them with one finger almost bumping them in the backside. 

“I know, Danno. We’ve been studying them in school. They’re a symbol of wisdom and good luck. Hurry, guys. Cars coming,” Grace urged. She gazed worriedly the other direction, where she and Danno and Uncle Steve were headed, where the beach road began its long climb into the mountains. No lights shone from that direction though. Stars were twinkling before vanishing into the morning sky. 

“Ma’am, you really shouldn’t….” Steve started to say. He turned to find the woman had quietly gathered her bike, and was walking along the beach towards the blue and white, rolling waves, between the large, volcanic boulders sprinkled around like discarded marbles. 

“Ma’am?” Danny echoed. 

She waved to them, and they waved back out of reflex politeness. Steve watched the turtle tattoo on her back, and the sway of her long black hair, almost hypnotized as she vanished from sight around an enormous boulder. She was one with sand and wind and sea, and then she was gone. The surf was already smoothing away her footprints. The only living creatures staring back from the beach were other turtles, large and small, diverse as stars in the night sky. Steve shivered, and the hairs on his neck stood up. Had she really been there at all? He turned to Danny for confirmation, but Danny wasn’t there. 

Danny was back in the Camaro, digging around in his backpack. He had found his camera, and walked to the side of the road, snapping away. Too aware of the lens, Steve knelt down by Grace, speaking with her softly. 

“They’re newborns,” Steve commented, eyes narrowing along the path the turtles must have followed to get here. Somewhere back there was a hole in the sand with broken eggshell fragments littering the ground. 

“Where are their parents?” Grace asked. 

“Maybe they’re already on the beach?” Steve suggested. He didn’t want to have to explain that turtles took a hands-off approach to parenting, not sure Grace would understand. 

“What kind are they?” she asked. 

Steve tilted his head to one side. “Green sea turtles.” 

“How many are there?” Grace wondered. She crawled along, counting them with almost-touches to the tops of their shells. She stopped around thirty, and wasn’t yet to the end of the line. 

Danny backed away, camera clicking, smile widening. Steve glanced up, almost chiding him. Danny lowered the camera. A wistful smile took over Danny’s face. He dusted sand and highway gravel off his knees, and kept the camera down. Moments like this should not be viewed through a camera lens, but with the heart. It was a passing second in time that would never come again. Grace and Steve. The ocean and the beach. The small turtles. His child’s hand. The lines beginning to appear around Steve's eyes. Footprints in the sand which would disappear with the next wave. 

“Last one,” Danny called out, pointing down. The tiny creature took affront at the accusation. It stepped up its speed, climbing up onto the pavement, and passing the sibling in front of him. Grace got beside the last turtle, urging it to hurry. 

“How do you know it’s a boy?” she asked. 

Flabbergasted, Danny shrugged, looking to Steve for help. 

“Not my area of expertise,” the big SEAL mused. 

The other car had rolled up on their location. Several heads popped out even before the car came to a stop. Camera phones appeared. Video was being shot. This was going to be up on the internet in minutes. Lo and behold, though, the teens kept a respectful distance. Danny had girded himself, expecting the worst, and was pleasantly surprised by their behavior. 

Danny dreaded the advance of time. That was going to be Grace in not so many years, hanging out with her friends, not wanting her old man around. Someday she wasn’t going to want to get up at four in the morning, and go hiking with Danno and Uncle Steve. The inevitability of that broke Danny’s heart. His baby girl was growing faster and faster every day. Who knew how much longer he had left with her? 

Danny took one last picture of Grace, bent over the final turtle, nudging without touching, small braid hanging down to the pavement. He decided that if this picture turned out like he hoped, he was going to save it, frame it, and give it to Grace in twenty years when she graduated college with several degrees in marine biology. Danny promised himself he was going to be around to see that happen, even if it meant suffering with one less malasada here or there. 

Once the straggler honu hit the sand with all four feet, little tail dragging a meandering line behind, Steve scooped Grace up off the pavement, putting her over one shoulder as she giggled gleefully. They both stuck out their arms like airplanes, whirling and turning back towards the Camaro. Her bunny pajamas were fluttering like flags in the wind. Steve was a big blue and beige pillar in cargo pants and boots as he spun Grace around. Danny couldn't help it. He snapped another picture, not trusting himself to remember how this moment had felt without help. Grace leapt out of Steve's arms. He patted her head, and pulled out his phone. 

“Who are you calling?” Danny wondered as Steve carefully steered over to the side, allowing the teens to carry on along the road. The kids drove on, waving out the windows. 

“Keep Hawaii Wild. You’re supposed to report sightings where the honu are crossing highways. They come down and inspect the sight. It means something or someone might be disturbing their nesting and resting grounds,” Steve said, turning the Camaro off, waiting for the call to connect. 

“You memorized their number?” Danny teased. 

“Speed dial,” Steve murmured. 

“Not surprised,” Danny laughed. He stood close to Steve, watching Grace get out of the car, put on shoes, and race down the beach, following behind the line of turtles as they trekked for the waves. 

“I should…..” Danny motioned. 

“Yeah, maybe, before she gets too close to the waves,” Steve chuckled. He reached out, brushing sugar off Danny’s chin. “Danno, I’m not saying don’t have malasadas. I’m saying don’t eat ten of them.”

“If I stop eating everything I love that’s bad for me, all that’ll leave me is lettuce salad and fruit smoothies,” Danny whined. 

“I don’t want you to have a heart attack, Danno.” 

“One malasada is not going to kill me.” 

“Seventeen of them will,” Steve frowned. 

“Whatever,” Danny replied, smacking Steve’s ribs before racing off to catch up to Grace. She was already up to her ankles in the surf. 

“Aloha,” Steve beamed. “I’d like to report a honu crossing.”


End file.
